What did you mean by "proclivity"? Proclivity to what? Proclivity is roughly synonymous to "tendency", as in a tendency to do something, behave a certain way, have some unexpected effect, etc.

The most noteworthy reason why Theory11 started selling the brown Wynn decks in the first place was that some cardists noticed that the cards had better handling - oddly enough, better than the other colors of the same series. Theory11 ran out of them perhaps about two years ago, giving away the last of them during a Holiday Season purchase-based giveaway - I believe it was that if you bought at least $75 worth of merchandise with at least one shippable item, you got the Brown Wynn deck for free; other decks were available at higher purchase points while supplies lasted.

We probably have more information about it in our posts from that time period - we often run special threads just for the period between Black Friday and early January.

All in all, some excellent work, iDoctor!

Don, thank you very much for your appreciation and sorry for my poor English. It's not my native tongue and I really have difficulties in choosing of a correct words.

I was trying to say that the Icon decks became popular among Wynn Casino visitors and card collectors and had a tendency to go outside of the Casino into public hands. The Wynn Casino was not happy that so many of their "floor-used" decks had got into public hands - that was the main reason why these cards were recalled and why we could find a lot of them uncancelled.

Don, thank you very much for your appreciation and sorry for my poor English. It's not my native tongue and I really have difficulties in choosing of a correct words.

I was trying to say that the Icon decks became popular among Wynn Casino visitors and card collectors and had a tendency to go outside of the Casino into public hands. The Wynn Casino was not happy that so many of their "floor-used" decks had got into public hands - that was the main reason why these cards were recalled and why we could find a lot of them uncancelled.

I suspect that might not be entirely accurate. Nevada state gaming laws prohibit casinos from releasing decks made for use on the casino floor unless they're either canceled or the style/color is being phased out and is no longer to be used on the floor.

This is the normal life cycle of a casino deck in the state of Nevada, as I understand it - someone please correct me if I'm wrong:

If the deck design is still in use on the floor, a deck (or a stack of decks, as USPC now offers pre-shuffled stacks of up to six or eight decks) hits the floor for use. A more modern casino will use the newer continuous-shuffle deck shoes - cards are gathered after they're played, stacked into a chute on the shoe and the cards in the shoe get shuffled with the cards in the chute, making card counting pretty much impossible, as the shuffles take place with a high rate of frequency. Cheaper joints that can't afford that will resort to using pre-shuffled shoes of eight decks - counting isn't impossible, but it's very difficult and the shoes never get to even the half-way mark before the cards are removed, shuffled and placed in play again. A typical deck lasts around 8 hours on the floor, give or take.

After the deck has been "consumed" by use, the decks and the empty boxes are shipped to a Nevada state prison with a special work program. The cards are resorted into individual decks by the inmates, who then marker-up the sides of the deck, place it in a box (rarely with the jokers or barcoded control cards, since they're never floor-used) and cut a corner in a very ragged manner off the deck, box and all. Some years back they used to drill the cards, but apparently some people found a way to make a drilled-out canceled deck look unused and started trying to swap them into play with a bit of sleight of hand. The prisoners are heavily supervised and removing cards qualifies as possession of contraband. After sorting and boxing, these decks are either returned to the casino for souvenirs to sell or forwarded to a company like Paul-Son who sells them all over the country.

If the deck style and/or color is phased out and replaced by some new style/color, any remaining cards in the old style/color in stock are free to be sold off, still sealed in the original packaging. They end up all over the place and are highly sought after because of their quality and rarity. They might get sold in bulk, given to certain guests, handed out to employees, etc. but the majority are simply sold to shops which deal in casino decks - Gambler's General Store's brick-and-mortar location was one of them, before the company moved to Texas and got renamed Gambler's Warehouse. Someone I know who used to live in Nevada tells me they frequently showed up at flea markets and swap meets; he said a patient collector could really find some gems checking those places out.

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Card Illusionist, NYC Area  Playing Card Design & Development ConsultantServices for Hire

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.  Mark Twain

Yup I too think that the borderless green GN is from a 2-decks gift set as I have quite a couple of casino gift sets myself. Namely the MGM, Sahara (3rd ed?), Frontiers (4 boxes of One way back, still finding the Two way back design) and Dunes.

Hey, Sliverboi, I'm sure we've been right about 2-decks gift set! I've just found another unknown Golden Nugget deck on eBay - and it's WHITE! Look at this deck also produced by Whitman in 1977 - it's yours deck sister exactly!

Things like calendars and lists of poker hands and their ranks were not common for floor decks, but we're common for souvenir decks.

Again, someone correct me if I am wrong.

Don, I'm sure you are right - these cards are definetely from casino gift set! I've got several similar 2-decks souvenir sets from different Vegas casinos, but this one is extremely rare. Probably these were produced only once.

I honed in on the solid back designs with white borders. Many years ago that was my favorite type of deck to collect. I sold off my large collection of vintage casino decks in order to narrow the scope of my collection. Many of you may own some of my old decks.

For whatever reason, some of these vintage casino decks are mind-bogglingly rare.

Fred - not sure if you research extends to the other vintage casino decks, but the above link could be a good jumping off point for a detailed study.

I honed in on the solid back designs with white borders. Many years ago that was my favorite type of deck to collect. I sold off my large collection of vintage casino decks in order to narrow the scope of my collection. Many of you may own some of my old decks.

For whatever reason, some of these vintage casino decks are mind-bogglingly rare.

Fred - not sure if you research extends to the other vintage casino decks, but the above link could be a good jumping off point for a detailed study.

I really enjoy your site! I've used it three times today to research information about other decks!

BTW: check your data on Gemaco and Paulson - they appear to now be the property of Gaming Partners International (GPI). I've never heard of USPC selling off a property they owned before - usually they're just absorbed into the collective!

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Card Illusionist, NYC Area  Playing Card Design & Development ConsultantServices for Hire

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.  Mark Twain

I honed in on the solid back designs with white borders. Many years ago that was my favorite type of deck to collect. I sold off my large collection of vintage casino decks in order to narrow the scope of my collection. Many of you may own some of my old decks.

For whatever reason, some of these vintage casino decks are mind-bogglingly rare.

Fred - not sure if you research extends to the other vintage casino decks, but the above link could be a good jumping off point for a detailed study.

Really nice to see you again. Hope you can come here more frequently, or update the site. As there are only a handful of people I know that collect casino vintage decks.

The third - Encore type of decks - is the rarest of Wynns. This deck was created to commemorate the opening of the Encore, the Wynn's sister casino. They were made with the Wynn's 'W' icon, but diamond-backed again.

They were originally to be used in both Wynns casinos, but the cards could not be used at all. Why? Because the 'W' icon had been mistakenly placed in the middle of the deck, creating a one-way design.

Hence the second, funny name of this rare misprinted deck is "Oh Crap, we didn't think of that".

I actually have an interesting addendum to this post.

I recently visited Las Vegas as part of a two-state trip with an old school friend to commemorate the both of us turning 50 years old this year. One of my stops was the Wynn and Encore casinos.

As it turns out, unlike other casinos on the Vegas Strip, the Wynn and Encore, both Wynn casinos, stopped selling floor-used, canceled decks in their gift shops. Instead, they sell these two interesting decks with one-way backs, pictured below. Both have Arrco faces, use the same jokers seen in the current "Play-Right" decks from Walgreens (which also have Arrco faces), have ad cards featuring the rules of Texas Hold 'Em and a guide to the value of poker hands and have an exceptionally generic-looking Ace of Spades with the words "The United States Playing Card Company Made In USA" under the big spade.

As you can see, one has a back design with a white-bordered photo of a stack of Wynn chips of varying denominations, topped by a purple $500 chip. The other has a back design identical to these coveted Bee Casino playing cards that were intended for floor use but never made it to play because of their flawed, one-way design! It would seem that the design was more popular than they'd originally thought, popular enough to warrant a second printing, albeit in modified form.

It's perhaps the only instance I've ever seen of a Bee back appearing on an Arrco face.

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Card Illusionist, NYC Area  Playing Card Design & Development ConsultantServices for Hire

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.  Mark Twain